/4 Except this is not, in fact, a particularly good idea. The “fighting words” exception is defunct. It hasn’t been used by the Supreme Court to justify a speech restriction in living memory and it was specifically rejected as a basis to uphold flag burning laws.

/3 Now the FedSoc mids in the Administration have a Bright Idea: what if we prosecuted flag burning not as flag burning but on theory that it falls under the “fighting words” or incitement exceptions?

/2 The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that the First Amendment protects flag burning from prosecutions aimed at its offensiveness or its tendency to profane a national symbol. That’s a generation old.

“The loyalists around Trump are much more open and much bolder in their authoritarianism than they were six months ago," says Steve Levitsky. "They’ve learned fight by fight that they can get away with it."

Trump's accomplices are running wild. Examples below:

newrepublic.com/article/1996...

Below I laid out some questions that news orgs could be asking now. The discovery process in Lisa Cook's lawsuit may also shed light on them:

newrepublic.com/article/1996...